Boston Society for Architecture and the Carbon Leadership Forum Boston/Northeast Hub To Host the 2024 Northeast Embodied Carbon Summit June 20-21, 2024

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May 30, 2024, 08:03 ET

The event will provide resources to the Architecture, Engineering & Construction community, advocates and policymakers to address the issue of embodied carbon in the built environment and fight climate change.

BOSTON, May 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Boston Society for Architecture (BSA) and the Boston/Northeast Hub of the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) have announced that the 2024 Northeast Embodied Carbon Summit will be held in Boston from June 20-21, 2024 and that registration is now open. The summit marks five years since the BSA held the Embodied Carbon in Buildings Conference which led to the development of the EC 101 Series and the creation of the CLF Boston / Northeast Hub. The goal of the summit is to come together to learn from each other, provide resources to the broader Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) community, and to advance the collective efforts of this group to help lower the impact of climate change.

"In the past five years, great strides have been made both nationally and regionally in embodied carbon through advocacy, research, education, outreach, and implementation," said Miranda D'Oleo, Manager of Policy and Advocacy for the Boston Society for Architecture. "There have been advances on many fronts including policy, concrete, biogenic materials, adaptive re-use and an increase in case studies. We look forward to hosting the Northeast Embodied Carbon Summit to bring together our community and further drive innovation in our practices in the Northeast and beyond."

The Summit will include opening remarks by Andrea Love, FAIA and past President of the BSA and keynote remarks will be made by Billie Faircloth, FAIA, former Partner and Research Director at KieranTimberlake, incoming Associate Professor at Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP), Cornell Atkinson Scholar and Senior Faculty Fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. Winners of the BE+/MassCEC Net Zero Challenge will also be recognized during the event's reception by Katherine Antos, Undersecretary for Decarbonization and Resilience at Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. For more information on the 2024 Northeast Embodied Carbon Summit, including pricing and a full schedule of events, or to register, please visit the BSA website here.

The event also comes as the BSA and CLF released a Low-Carbon Concrete Report, which explored solutions to accelerating the specification and use of low-carbon concrete in the built environment. Experts estimate that concrete is responsible for 8% of all global carbon emissions and, according to the International Energy Agency, emissions from cement alone must fall by an average of 4% per year through 2030 to limit global temperature rise to 1.5º C. Massachusetts' own goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 85% by 2050, will rely heavily on decarbonizing concrete. The co-published report concludes that the obstacles to this key climate initiative lie not in technology or engineering, but in the design and construction process.
The report can be downloaded for free here.

About the Boston Society for Architecture (BSA)
The Boston Society for Architecture (BSA) is a non-profit membership organization focused on improving the quality of life for Boston-area residents by championing innovation in the built environment, with particular emphasis on sustainability and social equity. We achieve this by connecting our diverse and passionate network of over 4,500 architects, firms and allied members through collaborative initiatives that create solutions towards a more equitable and sustainable future. We extend and deepen these efforts philanthropically through our BSA Foundation, with donations and hands-on work in our community. The BSA is one of the oldest and largest chapters of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). For more information about the BSA and the BSA Foundation, visit architects.org.

About the Boston/Northeast Hub of the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF)

The Boston/Northeast Regional Hub of the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) is a volunteer-led group working to bring people together towards reducing embodied carbon emissions in our community through supporting the goals and mission of CLF at the local scale. The Hub empowers local leaders to use CLF research and resources to drive action in the communities of Boston and the Northeast region. The Hub shares knowledge and identifies actions—immediate and long-term—for the AEC industry to address issues of embodied carbon in the built environment.

SOURCE Boston Society for Architecture